I lapse. I turn to fancy. But Fancy looks like Herself. She’s become the face of what I want, little more, though the face still plucks and twangs. No indignation, little embarrassment or shame, but more than enough regret. And those get smaller. Hope is the last thing to go. It can hang around for as long as it wants. It feels good. I don’t have to take it seriously. Hope can stay. It doesn’t have to be for Herself, but when the right one of her comes along, I want to be receptive. Bitterness wears thin, is dispiriting. What’s the point? Who’s to blame, anymore? I’ll take it but don’t nail me up with it: I am no longer that person. Not all of it, anyway. I’ll always be some of it. I don’t want perfection; I want my perfection, the kind with an occasional mistake for the sakes of humility and education.

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I have told no one but you that I’m publishing this thing. How’s my conscience? I fear the judgement of someone who thinks Herself should be old history, and I suspect everyone to be that person, because I’m in denial of having already made that judgement of myself. It’s a fair one–if you believe I’m not over her. You’re smarter than I am. I saw her and got a face of denial pie: Nothing Ive been telling myself since she left rings true. But why do I deny this truth? Do I have to be ashamed of forgiving myself and trying to apologize to her? There’s an irony at work that I’m ill-equipped to untangle. There’s the hope that she at least no longer thinks badly of me, but that becomes the hope of getting another chance; there’s the thought of her forgiving me, but then there’s the dread of being forgotten; there’s knowing what I want and knowing the impossibility of getting it: The proportions are volatile; I couldn’t possibly equate them better. All I really know is that the product, confusion, is fuel to the writing machine.

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With all the respect I’ve lost, I still like my job. I know where I stand there, but that’s in a humble place, and it’s uncomfortable. I don’t want to live in that shame anymore–at least not all of it. I will be a while sloughing it off. I get cynical and aloof, but I’m just feeling lonely. Self-pity, envy, missed opportunities for compassion: I lie low then. That’s most of the time. The rest of the time, I’m nice, almost talkative. I can reach out a little ways. Whichever person I am on a given day, I like what I do, assisting the free dissemination of information to people who still read. My employer does not have that same commitment. I hope I am gone before the county has completed turning its library system into a chain of bookstores and proportionally reducing my salary to a wage and my importance to nil.